Wildcat India Pale Ale | Old Bust Head Brewing Co.

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Notes / Commercial Description:
Breaking away from the recent trend of super-hopped IPAs, Wildcat is brewed to provide the aroma and taste hop-heads crave, without overwhelming your pallet. Brewed with four different hops, and five different malts, our IPA is complex, while still remaining approachable. Magnum, Cascade, Liberty, and Saaz hops lend our IPA a citrus aroma, with a touch of noble hop distinction and herbal complexity, and a smooth, clean bitterness. The use of five different malts in our grain bill provides Wildcat with the complex flavors of malty sweetness, bread, and caramel that we use to round out our brew. Just like the settlers of Wildcat Mountain who inspired its name, Wildcat IPA blazes its own path into history. We hope you’ll be inspired to go your own way too, as you enjoy our Wildcat IPA.

This is a very unique IPA. If you are the kind of person that does not like the excessive hoppy flavor in your beer, this is definitely for you. I think it is also a great transitional beer for someone who is just getting into IPA's and is not ready for the bold hoppiness in other beers.

It has a slightly malty taste and a minorly tart flavor. What I like about it is that it is light bodied and while the hops hit you slightly quickly, it dissipates just as fast. This is definitely more of a refreshing IPA, and is very hard to compare to other IPA's like Bear Republic and Oskar Blues type IPA's. It really is in a league of its own.

An IPA is a "Love it or Leave it" type beer. The folks at OBH are smart as they made their first IPA brew something that everybody could get into. Smart marketing for an upstart brewery.

Thick deep slightly off tan colored head, huge and large but not overly so at about four fingers tall. Big island puck and ring lacing on the glass, sitting on a body of bronze orange amber, and slightly rusty looking. Body has some slow carbonation, but also looks a little cloudy.

Mellow hop forward aroma slightly floral a bit. Not much else going on the malt angle, and a subdued subtle quality. Some orange herbal tea like aromas come out a bit too. Not too bad.

Palate comes quite nicely and with some malt depth more than hinted on the nose. A very subtle hop quality with minimal bitterness. Much of the orange seems to come out a bit now with some floral aromatics. Good malt mellow caramel sweetness. Really nice texture to this as well, almost fluffy on the tongue with some light bread.

This is not a hop heads beer, but it certainly is a very pleasant and soft IPA. Real easy drinking mostly because of that.

1 1/2 finger of an off-white head, with o.k lacing on the glass. Orangish amber in color, and fairly clear. Head stays for a while. Pleasant in appearance.

Aroma is quite malty for an IPA, but with some nice herbal and slight citrus notes from the hops cutting in. Bready, biscuity, and slightly honey hits the nose. A slight citrus is there popping in every now and again. Gets more and more bready as it is warming.

There's biscuity, a bit toasty, slightly caramel and honey tastes coming from the malt. Hop flavor is mostly herbal. This is a more malt-forward IPA, with relatively low intensity hop aromatics. Aftertaste features a dull, coating, but only moderately intensive bitterness. Not many remnants of great flavor are left in the mouth as we're sipping.

Mouthfeel is quite nice, owing in large part to the grain bill. There is no real astringency, but a clement tongue-slapping quality to the beer. It also produces a nice creaminess as it swishes around in the mouth.

A solid English-style IPA. As some have said, this may work as a gateway to the style for those less disposed toward the hoppiest of the hoppy brews. Personally, I can't help wishing there was just a bit more to the hop aroma. The malts are nice though, and it is a good sipper.